Why do Gift Cards codes not work if they haven’t been purchased but the moment they are purchased, the code that is on them activates?
In: Technology
To discourage theft. Gift cards are small, high value items. If they just had value without having to be activated, you could walk into a store, shovel tens of thousands of dollars worth of gift cards into a bag and run out in seconds. Or more stealthily, easily pocket thousands of dollars worth of them.
By making them worthless unless someone activates them, there’s no reason to steal them.
Edit: Plus, much easier on the retailer. If I’m a store and want to stock $10,000 worth of gift cards, I don’t need to pay thousands of dollars upfront for these cards which may or may not get sold.
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